Graphic Arts and Celtic DNA

Monthly Archives: January 2015

Here’s your blog artist at a recent July 4 parade, attempting to express himself in watercolor painting: see first photo. It was difficult to find the proper focus when there was such distraction from our coast highway artists collective models, posing at the front of the truck bed: see second photo.

One of my favorite watercolor painting sites is a lotus and waterlily pond not far from my home, built by a homeowner at a site within a dense stand of redwood forest. The owner makes the pond available to our painting group on request, about once each year, and it is one of the most silent, serene places we get to enjoy on any painting excursions. It is very difficult to capture the beauty of this pond, with its crystal clear water, and the multitude of colors one can see on the surface and below. If I had the run of the place I know I might want to go there more often, simply to meditate.

Thinking of our new photo theme, “Shadowed,” it can sometimes prompt a certain sense of apprehension, perhaps in cloaking some object or scene that has drawn our attention. Shadowing is almost like a physical presence as it physically moves with time across our view, dimming or perhaps obliterating color, causing us to almost lose some perception of depth in our field of view.

The first photo of a darkening, rocky coastline is of that sort. The second photo presenting a shaft of sunlight entering a room shows a shadowing effect that dramatizes boundary effects between light and darkness. In extreme light, color becomes washed out, and in extreme shadow any color is cloaked in darkness. Notice how in the transition area between light and darkness, color is at its richest in saturation.

And finally, to remove the solemnity of shadowing discussions, we have a possible crowd pleaser, the charming cat photograph, which few can grumble over (I hope). Here, my cat Tock creeps out of the obscuring shadows to “startle” his House Mate. (Alas, Tock is no longer with me; he disappeared months later I’m sad to say)>

I’m experimenting these days with a new, for me, art style in watercolor painting. A lot of my painting has been figurative realism, with the nude figure. I usually start from pencil or charcoal sketches made during a weekly drop-in session held at our local art center. We usually have about 8 or 9 artists, and we chip-in for the model’s fee. Good, relaxed atmosphere. I usually work on the painting later, at home. I’ve tried a little by way of expressionism in altering the reality of the poses, but I’ve been unable to wander much from realism in my work. Sometimes the results are exciting, but other times they may be boring.

Recently I decided to loosen up a bit more, by employing a little Lichtenstein/Warhol playfulness-satire-comic themes into a few paintings. Here are photos of an initial two that I had entered in an exhibit that ended last week. The exhibit theme was titled “SHAMELESS,” and encouraged rampant commercialism. It was fun to get some reactions to my new work from artist friends, and I may occasionally do more paintings in the same style.